Associate professor responsibilities in short will give you an overview about the duties towards the profession, educational credentials and skills, you require to master to carve a niche in this particular domain of interest. A beforehand knowledge always helps you to get an insight about how you must move forward towards your goal in an appropriate way.
Who is an associate professor?
An associate professor is a professional who is an entry level professor, a fresher who serves for a certain period under the able direction of the senior professor, has recently completed his PhD, or pursuing to complete a post -doctoral fellowship. His services will be scheduled strictly for a decided time frame after which he is entitled to be promoted to a higher senior position or will require to serve elsewhere as professor in a full-time service.
Duties/Responsibilities of an associate professor
As an associate professor your responsibilities would usually revolve around gaining an experience to make an entry in the profession as a future full-time professor. He will be responsible to support the activities of the senior professors around by helping them to plan daily curriculum, take up lectures for the students as a part of his own assessment. In short he will be entitled to perform research, teaching and also supervise over the administrable work in the departments. The senior professors, head of the administration (Dean of college) or the external reviewers (inspection) decide over the work done by the associate professor and decide whether the candidate (associate professor) is fit to be promoted to the next promotional level, the associate professor would be required to continually keep himself worked up as such. He will require to assist the professor in doing research by providing the necessary findings and material required in the context. He will be required to give lessons to the students, encourage them to come up with the problems faced and motivate them to do better through positive reinforcement and feedbacks.
Skills of an associate professors
In a view to get established as an associate professor what you require is an essential set of skills to help you maneuver through your profession. Since teaching is a noble profession what you require here would be a perfect combination of subject knowledge and a will to encourage the students to comprehend the subject in a much easier way by explaining the subject through illustrations and models, diagrams etc. Possess an innate desire to teach. Implement innovate ideas and strategies to make learning a wonderful experience to cherish. An ability to perceive and perform research for the contextual subject. A committed attitude towards the organization to come up to the expectations of the students, senior staff and the administration concerned. Possess an amiable nature with an excellent communication skills to maintain a good rapport with the students and the staff.
How to become an associate professors
Associate professor responsibilities and skills need an essential educational qualification to complement with in order to become an associate professor. As an associate professor what you require is a Masters degree in related subject, PhD, or must be a candidate who has applied for a post-doctoral fellowship program. Apart from this if you possess a specialization in teaching it would be much an added advantage.
Career Scope of an Associate professors
If you have love the profession of teaching and have a will to establish yourself in this profession you could very well choose this profession which is challenging in a way since it continuously requires self assessment through channels like teaching and research. Since the senior professor too always requires to perform an array of duties like instructing, gathering information for the research, and doing a whole lot of administrative work his individual effort are cumbersome, so in order to help him to cope with such diverse duties nowadays the colleges have started to hire the services of the associate professor.